Yellowstone Topographic Map, 1912

The story of this map

Yellowstone was the world’s first national park, set aside in 1872, and the US Geological Survey mapped it more carefully than almost any other piece of the American West. This 1912 edition of the Survey’s park map puts the whole of Yellowstone on a single sheet, in the brown contours, blue water and black lettering that define the classic American topo.

The great blue shape of Yellowstone Lake anchors the lower half. Above it the Yellowstone River drops into its canyon, drawn in a dense knot of contour lines, and to the west the geyser basins string out along the Firehole. Mammoth Hot Springs sits near the top edge, and the loop of park roads that visitors still drive threads it all together. The plateau’s volcanic rim shows as a broad ring of tighter contours around the edges.

This is a working map from the era of stagecoach tours and the first automobiles in the park, and its detail rewards standing close: creeks, hot springs, patrol cabins and mountain names are all there.

We print it as a restored reproduction in our Framed Topographic Maps collection. It looks right in a lodge, a mountain home, or a study, and pairs naturally with the 1915 panoramic view of the park. Printed to order on archival matte paper and framed in the country of delivery.

Before and after

Left: the archive scan exactly as published. Right: the file that goes to the printer.

Archive scanRestored

Restoration notes

Restoration plan: crop scan margins, balance colour cast and levels while keeping the paper tone, remove library stamps and scanner artefacts if present, gentle sharpening. No repainting of original content.

Every print carries its archive credit on the packing slip. Paper tone and small imperfections of the original are kept on purpose; nothing is redrawn.